By Michael Copley, Staff Writer
mcopley@powhatantoday.com

Some elected officials in Powhatan believe their state legislators are unsympathetic and uninterested in helping the county confront a budget forecast one supervisor called “nothing short of horrific.”

“The real culprits are the folks downtown,” said Board of Supervisors Chairman Robert R. Cosby last week at a joint budget workshop between the county and schools.

Cosby said Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan and Del. R. Lee Ware, Jr., R-Powhatan-whom he called “good men”- have “made no effort to help us.”

As of now, the county and school system face a combined shortfall of roughly $8 million next fiscal year, but that number gets bigger, it seems, everyday.

Powhatan School Superintendent Dr. Margaret S. Meara said county schools could be looking at another $1.3 million reduction based on news from the state last week. That would be on top of a more than $3 million shortfall school board members are working to makeup now.

“I don’t know where we’ll get that kind of money,” said Meara, “We’ve just about reached the bottom.”

Meara called it a “very, very bad situation” and said the school system is at the point of having to eliminate jobs- teachers, instructional assistants, SOL coordinators and custodians. She said the cost-cutting options the school board is having to consider would result in “drastic changes” to the quality of education in the county. But she was quick to point out that no cuts or decisions have been made yet.

“Teachers are the backbone,” she said, “but they need support. If we take away that support, I’m afraid many teachers won’t be able to meet the challenge.”

District 2 Supervisor Marsell Bustos said the outlook for schools is “nothing short of horrific” and suggested a “paradigm shift” is taking place “in the level of service we’ve enjoyed.”

But he said losing jobs is “unacceptable.”

District 1 Supervisor Joe Walton said the board of supervisors intends to attempt to level fund the schools with more than $19 million in local county transfer monies. That will mean setting a revenue neutral tax rate of 80 cents. For now, the schools are showing a little more thans $20 million in expected state revenue.

Walton stressed that raising the tax rate to revenue neutral, in order to level fund the schools, does not mean a tax increase for residents- at least, he said, on the average. And that revenue-neutral level is the highest he said he is willing to go.

In January, the board of supervisors learned revenue reductions to the county’s budget would likely exceed $4.9 million next fiscal year. That number is based on the former governor’s proposed budget, and supervisors have been told the county could be see a doubling in funding reductions by the time the state’s final budget is adopted.

“[The board of supervisors] is going to do our part,” said Cosby, “but we can’t stand the pressure from the General Assembly.”

Last night, Walton said the county is taking the same cost-cutting measures, proportionally, as the schools, and that its employees face the same uncertainties as their counterparts in the school system.

“State officials are not doing us justice,” said District 4 Supervisor Scott Daniel, “they’re not helping us take care of what needs to be done.”

Earlier in the month, Daniel said, “Because they don’t have any [money] they pass the buck [to the counties]. We have to go to the tax payer because [the state] won’t. It’s time for us to try to let the public know what’s going on.”

But Jason Moore, District 2 school board member, disagrees with the assessment from Cosby and other supervisors. In an e-mail, Moore wrote that Watkins and Ware “care,” but, “they ran on pledges not to raise taxes and to make cuts. They are honoring their election pledges.” And he added that the state doesn’t have the money to help localities.

“I accept the schools will lose jobs and salary,“ he wrote, “but it is part of a greater whole.”

IN QUOTES: Officials on schools’ budget shortfall

The economy has driven us to the situation we are in tonight … We’re going to have to go back to some old dark days if somebody doesn’t find some money to supplement these losses of revenue that Dr. Meara has told us about tonight. You can cut to the bone, but when you break the bone, you fall.
District 3 Supervisor Bob Cosby

The reduction in revenue … is knocking us back only a few years, maybe five, maybe six years depending on where things settle out ...we’re bearing in mind that the revenues that the county has to operate ... are not hundred year ago revenue levels.
District 1 Supervisor Joe Walton

I’m going to do everything I can do to make this thing work … it’s tough. It’s really, really bad. I don’t know what the answer is … we’re going to do the best we can. If you have any ideas, call me. Let me know. You might have something that the two boards haven’t thought about.
District 4 Supervisor Scott Daniel

Revenue neutral is a done deal. As painful as that is going to be to some of our constituents ...its just the price of doing business. I will tell you, in District 2, loss of jobs is unacceptable …I will drag my feet to the bitter end [to fight job loss]. This is the wrong place, wrong time.
District 2 Supervisor Marsell Bustos

The school division has tightened its belt. Last year we cut 14 positions. We cut dollars. This year I think everyone is absolutely willing to tighten that belt even more and to cut more. But then there is a point where that becomes untenable. And the staffing that we are looking at reducing has become untenable.
School Board representative Debbie Jones